So now Obama will bypass the legislature and courts to big Government database to track everyone who has received mental health care, because those 150 million or so are fucking crazy and likely to go on shooting rampages.

Quote:

Lawmakers and other officials said that the president could use a public event as soon as Wednesday to signal his intention to engage in the biggest Congressional fight over guns in nearly two decades, focusing on the heightened background checks and including efforts to ban assault weapons and their high-capacity clips. But given the difficulty of pushing new rules through a bitterly divided Congress, Mr. Obama will also promise to act on his own to reduce gun violence wherever possible.

Actions the president could take on his own are likely to include imposing new limits on guns imported from overseas, compelling federal agencies to improve sharing of mental health records and directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct research on gun violence, according to those briefed on the effort.

White House aides believe Mr. Obama can also ratchet up enforcement of existing laws, including tougher prosecution of people who lie on their background checks.

BK, didn't you (or maybe somebody else here) say that the problem is the crazies who have access to guns and not the guns it-self? Now that Obama wants to track people with mental health issues, you have a problem?_________________There is no guarantee a stupid Dalai Lama won’t come next -- Dalai Lama

BK, didn't you (or maybe somebody else here) say that the problem is the crazies who have access to guns and not the guns it-self? Now that Obama wants to track people with mental health issues, you have a problem?

No, I said it was young men who feel helpless and compelled to lash out at society, and who no longer (as in decades past) feel any moral compunction about doing so in the form of mass-killings (which somehow now seem like an attractive and acceptable idea to them, somehow), and that the state's responsibility is to identify the root causes of these changes and deal with those.

Anybody, mentally ill or not, who has expressed a credible desire to use a highly lethal device of any kind (firearm, automobile, etc.) to commit harm should be deprived of said device. For example, ichbinsysiphos should never be let near any kind of hammer. About half the population qualifies as "mentally ill" in one form or another. Maybe all of those people should be denied driver's licenses, access to alcohol, and employment in positions of authority as well? Or maybe we should go back to just lobotomizing people, like the Kennedys did to their embarrassing daughter?

It's just another attempt to avoid the real problems and take advantage of an opportunity to expand authoritarian control. We don't care what kinds of problems we're creating or how they're making you feel; we'll just stop you from doing anything about it. Yeah, that's a recipe for a healthy society._________________Deja Moo: the feeling that you've heard this bull before

BK, didn't you (or maybe somebody else here) say that the problem is the crazies who have access to guns and not the guns it-self? Now that Obama wants to track people with mental health issues, you have a problem?

No, I said it was young men who feel helpless and compelled to lash out at society, and who no longer (as in decades past) feel any moral compunction about doing so in the form of mass-killings (which somehow now seem like an attractive and acceptable idea to them, somehow)

November 2, 1853: Louisville, Kentucky A student, Matthew Ward, bought a self-cocking pistol in the morning, went to school and killed schoolmaster Mr. Butler for excessively punishing his brother the day before. Even though he shot the schoolmaster point blank in front of his classmates, he was acquitted.[2]

young?
February 2, 1960: Hartford City, Indiana Principal Leonard Redden shot and killed two teachers with a shotgun at William Reed Elementary School before fleeing into a remote forest, where he committed suicide.[81]

June 12, 1976: California State University, Fullerton massacre Custodian Edward Charles Allaway, 37, opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle in the library on the California State University, Fullerton campus killing 7, and wounding 2.[citation needed]

btw, read the list and see a pattern:

non automatic weapons, one or two dead. Automatic weapons? masscres.

And now tell me how ownership of automatic weapons is covered by your constitution._________________

AidanJT wrote:

Libertardian denial of reality is wholly unimpressive and unconvincing, and simply serves to demonstrate what a bunch of delusional fools they all are.

BK, didn't you (or maybe somebody else here) say that the problem is the crazies who have access to guns and not the guns it-self? Now that Obama wants to track people with mental health issues, you have a problem?

No, I said it was young men who feel helpless and compelled to lash out at society, and who no longer (as in decades past) feel any moral compunction about doing so in the form of mass-killings (which somehow now seem like an attractive and acceptable idea to them, somehow)

Blaaaaaaaattt!!! Wrong. "Mass Shootings" have been going on steadily for about 30 years, at an average rate of about 15 people a year (and not all of them in the U.S., either). The record-holder is a Norwegian.

This focus on "school shootings" is artificially fap-specific. We've gone through phases, where the fashionable targets have been college campuses, post offices, places of employment, and most recently, schools (although there was a school shooting back in 1764, by some pissed off Native Americans). The perps are almost always young men._________________Deja Moo: the feeling that you've heard this bull before

Last edited by Bones McCracker on Tue Jan 15, 2013 9:46 pm; edited 1 time in total

the difference? 50 years ago they had no automatic weapons. That is the only difference.

Blaaaaat. Wrong.

Semiautomatic rifles and handguns have been available since the late 1800s and have been commonly possessed by the average U.S. owner firearms since after World War II, when millions of men came home from the war with experience using the M1 Garand, and semi-automatic hunting rifles became popular. Revolvers have been popular since the mid-1800s, and "automatic" (i.e., semi-automatic) pistols simply took their place.

The Thompson sub-machine-gun popularized light automatic weapons in the minds of Americans back in the 1920s, but automatic weapons have never been commonly owned, except by habitual criminals such as gang members and drug dealers._________________Deja Moo: the feeling that you've heard this bull before

And now tell me how ownership of automatic weapons is covered by your constitution.

Since relevant writings at the time describe its purpose as overthrowing / preventing tyrannical government, I'd argue that the existing automatic weapons ban is unconstitutional._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

Anybody, mentally ill or not, who has expressed a credible desire to use a highly lethal device of any kind (firearm, automobile, etc.) to commit harm should be deprived of said device.

Some in the field of psychology believe most or the vast majority of people who "snap" are not at all "crazy" (neither is it all that sudden)._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

I tend to agree. There is an inherent begging of the question when a clinical psychologist (as opposed to a theoretician) uses the term "rational". People don't like to use the term "normal", because, if you actually understand what it means, its moralistic connotations are stripped away.

Collectivist society presumes people who are in radical disagreement with its norms to be "crazy", "insane", or "mentally ill", because it makes it easier to justify forcing them to conform. That's exactly what we're seeing here. "It's all those crazies out there! Keep guns out of the hands of the crazies!" That's all well and good, except the same people screaming it define libertarians as "nut cases" without hesitation. They're the same people who knee-jerked after the Giffords shooting, and blamed it on "militia" and "right wing extremists" (because they are fucking crazy, you see).

While it may sound like conspiracy theory talk, or fear-mongering, history shows us quite clearly where this logic leads. The Soviet Union used to routinely put political prisoners in mental hospitals (because they are fucking crazy, you see). If you don't agree with the norm, you are literally "not normal".

So far, though, while there has been talk along these lines, most of the tangible movement I see is the same old crap, regurgitated, quickly warmed up, and served for breakfast: assault weapons bans, background check loopholes, Big Brother database integration, blah blah blah.

Meanwhile, renewed talk of bans has caused yet another surge in gun and ammo purchases. I bet gun and ammo manufacturers in the U.S. are making money hand over fist since 2008. I wish I had foreseen it and bought stock._________________Deja Moo: the feeling that you've heard this bull before

Last edited by Bones McCracker on Thu Jan 17, 2013 12:43 am; edited 1 time in total

Until I recently heard the theory that they weren't in fact crazy, thinking they were seems like a logical conclusion. Regardless of a collectivist society. What possible rational justification can there be for the CT shooting, or the one in Aurora? If there can be no reasonable justification, that would leave unreasonable. And if someone commits such an act without reasonable justification, then surely something must be wrong.

Still, I'm not convinced something isn't wrong, even if they don't qualify for the medical definition of crazy. Then again, I'm of the mind that those who would call it Evil are also of a collectivist mindset. So if they aren't evil, aren't crazy, and aren't rational, what does that leave? Seems like some kind of developmental issue, either physical and or environmental._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

What possible rational justification can there be for the CT shooting, or the one in Aurora?

Okay, here you go: "None of us really matter. Looking at the big picture, humanity is just part of a totally inconsequential, thin film of bio-slime, momentarily surviving on one of a gazillion rocks in space, of no inherent value or higher purpose. Even within its own isolated context, humanity is a blight on the Earth, and the rest of terrestrial life would be better off without it. No humans deserve to live, and anything that kills them achieves some value and goodness to the extent that it does so."_________________Deja Moo: the feeling that you've heard this bull before

Which pretty much points to a mental problem of some kind, even if not officially crazy.

How so? It's completely rational and based on scientific reality. Any objection you might make to it is almost certainly based entirely on something other than scientific reality (like some bullshit about the subjective human experience, some anthropocentric bullshit about the "importance" of people, or some flying spaghetti monster derived bullshit).

Say something to refute the statement in my last post. Go ahead. I guarantee it to be less rational, or, at best (if you really put some work into it), no more rational, than the statement.

So, except for a handful of self-actualized philosophers who have got the meaning of it all somehow figured out, all the rest of us are left with is the subjective claim that such things are "crazy talk" because they are at odds with the norm (if you're not pointlessly spinning a hamster wheel like everybody else, you must be crazy, you see (especially if you listen to your local King Rat who benefits from the spinning of those wheels))._________________Deja Moo: the feeling that you've heard this bull before

What's not rational about it? It's entirely factual and logical, is it not?

It's not "normal", because it violates the moral framework society has established -- a moral framework that, without any deliberate, rational justification, places great value on human life and presumes our worldly possessions and endeavors to be somehow meaningful and worthy of protection. But there's no real, scientific basis for any of that. Logically, it's a house of cards.

So, a very socially isolated (perhaps ostracized) person who, unlike most of us, feels they have nothing to lose by rejecting society's moral framework (which they are intelligent enough to recognize as arbitrary), might very well, using absolutely rational thinking, choose to blow away a lot of people.

This is why I mentioned that the decline of religion may also have something to do with this. I think the average intelligent person (intelligent enough to think for themselves) are experiencing a moral / philosophical vacuum. We've been brought up to admire Conan the Barbarian (drive your enemies before you and hear the lamentations of their women), James Bond (licensed to kill), Jedi warriors who cut bodies in half left and right, and Jason Bourne (who kills without a second thought). If you have inadequate or absent parents, or a fucked-up home life on top of this, then you might very well have real doubts about what's right and wrong, and what matters or doesn't. Watching their own society send their peers off to mow down other human beings in foreign lands with what the media tells us is dubious justification doesn't position the law or the state to serve in religion's stead either. Then throw in thousands upon thousands of hours of adrenaline-pumping, muscle-memory-building, first person shooter experience -- BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! -- and you've got a potential mass shooter on your hands._________________Deja Moo: the feeling that you've heard this bull before

I struggle to find an appropriate response. If you honestly believe it was rational, then there is probably no point in my participating. I thought you were trying to come up with something that might have been a rationalization to a person with mental or developmental problems. Not a rationalization that was viable to anyone else. I'm also not going to go point by point to explain what is wrong with it so you can try to justify why I'm wrong.

In first grade I recognized the absurdity of religion. I have no interest in killing a bunch of kids (or anyone for that matter) just because I think Obama and his 47% are the cause of the country's problems. I agree that a lack of parenting is a problem, but that has little to do with religion. Sadly, crazy religious types have tried to blame rock music, D&D and I'm sure a plethora of other things for what they like to call "evil." Religion is also used for "evil," but they of course don't try to ban religion._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

Not lack of religion, lack of moral and ethical guideposts for their behavior. You missed my point; I'm not arguing for religion.

I'm not advocating for religion, but for all that was wrong with it, religion did serve that purpose. Now you have to either be far above average intelligence and figure out your own moral code, follow the rest of the lemmings (who are doing whatever celebrities are doing and whatever is portrayed on TV and in movies), or follow a slightly watered-down version of what your parents told you (which is a slightly watered-down version of what their parents told them).

When a society has no clear definition of what behavior is right and wrong, many people are going to do things that many others feel is wrong. I'm not saying we need a secular version of the 10 Commandments (or the thousand commandments, more like). I'm saying people have no idea what the point of their life is, other than getting as many orgasms as possible and spinning whatever hamster-wheel they find themselves on. Therefore, they have no foundation upon which to make moral and ethical decisions.

Again, I'm not arguing for religion; I'm saying we're lacking education and public discourse about important philosophical topics.

All we've got now is "me, me, me". In a society where self-interest in the guiding force, when an individual gives up caring about their self for some reason (out of learned helplessness or frustration or what have you), then they've no longer got anything to guide their behavior, and it's not surprising some of them have no compunction about blowing a bunch of people away. I'm sure as they're doing it, along with "This'll teach those bastards," they're thinking, "Fuck it. Who cares? What difference does it make?"_________________Deja Moo: the feeling that you've heard this bull before